microraptor

Eating breakfast this morning when I saw a shape zoom into our backyard bushes and zoom out the other side with a lump in its claws.

Took a minute to figure out that some small hawk-like creature (a merlin ?) was going to have a a sparrow for his own breakfast. He sat on the ground for a while and I thought he might have to eat the sparrow there because it was too big to lift. But after resting a while he took off and had the picnic elsewhere.